The Magic of Composition

What transforms a good image into a great image? Of course, it requires technical skill and equipment of reasonable quality, but the magic is artistic – it’s that eye for composition, for colour and tone, for knowing what to leave in and what to leave out. Ultimately, that’s what creates images that engage us, delight us, raise questions or simply make us think “wow”.

World Windsurfing Championship – Torbole, Italy

150

SHOTS

8

HOURS ON THE LAKE

4560

METRES ALONG THE LAKESIDE

Creative Juice

Like most fine art photographers, I’ll happily admit that I specialise in certain types of image – because none of us is good at everything. Whilst there remains a constant desire to improve and experiment in the types of photography that I struggle with, you really don’t want to see those images. So, what you have here is a selection of the types of images I take that are loved by other people – images that you might feel are worth more than the few seconds it takes to consider them.

Wildlife Photography

From fast-action images of birds in flight to the tiniest details of small animals, a great shot is still defined by far more than technical expertise with a camera or Photoshop.

Still Life Photography

Macro and close-up images where time has been taken to explore composition, light and to extract some of the beautiful details in nature that we often miss.

Architecture

Architectural photography isn’t straightforward, given the complexities of perspective and parallax, but achieving a simple, yet arresting, composition can be far harder.

America’s Canyonlands

The Canyonlands of Utah, Arizona and Nevada are both a photographer’s paradise and nemesis. This is a result of the hyper-reality of much of the landscape, which makes every image look like it’s been pushed through high-dynamic-range processing, and the limitless opportunities. If you just start taking photographs, even in an area as relatively limited as Kodachrome Basin (the name is no accident), it would be perfectly possible to spend 2 or 3 days taking fabulous shots with very different visual content.

However, when you’re confronted with the enormity of somewhere like Bryce Canyon, where colours also change throughout the day, it’s definitely a case of ‘less is more’. It may take only a few hours to cover the obvious locations, but days to fully explore its photographic potential.

These images are a selection from a two week journey through Zion Canyon, Red Rock Canyon, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Kodachrome Basin.